In May 2007 a committee called ??Ansvarskommittén??, assembled by the Swedish government, came with a proposal of changing the Swedish regional structure. The committee which consisted of representatives from all the sitting parties in the parliament proposed that the present regional structure consisting of 20 county council districts and 21 counties would be reduced to between 6-9  regions called ??regionkommuner??.The purpose of this study is to analyze how the committee?s proposal balances democratic and economic values by using a qualitative method. The committee?s proposal is analyzed by a comparison in five political areas with two differentiated regional theories called old and new regionalism.

In this two years masters thesis in Library and Information Studies, the Russian Library-Bibliographical Classification (LBC/BBK) and the Chinese Library Classification (CLC) are analyzed with regard to their historical and ideological backgrounds and their respective evolutions. The structure of these classifications is compared with the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), as well as three chosen subjects (History, Politics and Religion). A qualitative comparative textual method is used.The study shows that these classification schemes, created at different times, different parts of the world, and different political systems, have different biases but give priority to the European before other foreign views. Otherwise, they often use a proximity principle. The CLC and the LBC were originally based on Marxist materialist principles but built in totally different ways.

This study explores women?s experiences of the impact of remote work on work-life balance, and the potential consequences of telecommuting from a gender equality perspective. This investigation is contextualized by societal shifts post-pandemic, during which remote work has become increasingly prevalent. This transition raises new questions about the impact of home-based work on individuals? work-life balance, particularly for women who, according to prior studies, carry a greater responsibility for household tasks.

Barley is one of the most important cereals cultivated in the Nordic countries. Climate change brings warmer and moisture climate which favors fungal diseases. In the cropland barley can be seriously infested with hard fungus attack. Since it is important that the yield bears a high quality it is of great importance to find varieties more resistant to attacks.Pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins are stress proteins induced in the plant in response to infection and abiotic stress (van Loon, 1997). PRs are shown to have antimicrobial activity differing between bacteria, fungi and oomycetes (Tandrup Poulsen, 2001).

This essay examines the grotesque in Samuel Becketts wellknown play Waiting for Godot. The play is primarily seen as an icon of absurdism, and it is such not appropriate to examine the play as if it belongs to the litterary genre of grotesque. The primary purpose of absurdism is to reveal the pointless- and emptiness of existence. In order to illustrate these points absurdism will often make use of the common characteristics of the grotesque. With this in mind I present, within this essay, an eximination of whether Samuel Becket makes use of these characteristics to assist his portayal of emptiness in Waiting for Godot.A prior understanding of absurdism is required and i have as such primarly used Martin Esslins famous studies.The studies of the grotesque are mainly represented by two theorists.

This study examined the factors influencing dairy farmers´ decisions to invest in automated milking systems (AMS). The problem studied involves uncertainty, information and complexity for dairy farmers in specific decision contexts. The frame of reference in the thesis combines contingency theory and decision theory and is used in a qualitative analysis of a set interview with dairy farmers who have recently bought an AMS and salespersons from Delaval, one of the AMS suppliers.The aim of this study is to develop an understanding of the decision making processes of dairy farmers, and in particular to identify which types of factors influence the outcome of an investment decision in the technological development of a farm.The study uses Thompsons` (1967) theory about the structure that organizations develop to handle the input of information. Thus, interest is focused on how a farm business structure handles information in the AMS decision, investigating the differences in information with Delaval?s "feed first principle" system and Lely?s "free cow traffic" system.The results of the qualitative interviews with the dairy farmers who bought an AMS show that there are three important factors that influence the outcome: employees, suppliers and the owner.

Designing temporary cities is a study of the design and physical planning of five temporary cities. The purpose was to discuss and note the important questions to be considered, when designing the outdoor environment in temporary cities to create as good an environment for the visitor as possible. The five cities I have chosen are among the most famous ones in Scandinavia, and they represent different kinds of temporary cities. This was a deliberate choice to achieve diverse research material, and with that a broad view of what the planning stage generally looks like. Study of the cities has been done through interviews with the people responsible for the design and/or physical planning of each city.

Sweden's school voucher reform has made the Swedish school system into one of the world's most liberalized. The debate concerning the ownership of Swedish schools is intense and the Swedish Minister of Education is open to restricting private equity owned companies from running schools. Interestingly, fewer calls are heard for restricting smaller profit-driven companies from owning schools. This essay aims to examine whether or not the quality of education provided by an individual school changes if it is acquired by a large private equity owned school group. This is done by conducting a comparative study on four independent schools recently acquired by AcadeMedia, Sweden's biggest private equity owned school group.

Scana-Booforge is a Swedish company which specialize in heat treatment of various metal. The treatments take place in quenching ovens, where fans are used to circulate the hot air. The fans used today do not have a satisfactory lifespan. This thesis aims to develop a new design of the fans for the quenching ovens, and the goal is that the new fans will bring cost savings for Scana-Booforge.The design development process started with mapping out the environment in which the fans operate, and with analysis of the existing fan structure and damages, in order to establish the cause of failure and of short durability. The performance of the fan were also established at this stage.

In today's producing companies, there is a high demand on early integrated productdevelopment. One way to facilitate communication between departments and collaborationbetween people and thereby enable early sharing of product information within the companyis to use PLM, Product Lifecycle Management.The CAD environment at Scania is at the moment being upgraded from Catia v4 to Catiav5. In this stage it is important that also the interacting computer systems in Scania?s PLMenvironment are adjusted and in the future join the development. Scania has an idea of howthese systems will be developed as the transition from Catia v4 to Catia v5 is being carriedout.

GIS on the Internet is a rather new phenomenon, which has evolved from the need ofdistributed geographical data. It is also a powerful tool for presenting information on theInternet. This master thesis aim to create a web based GIS application with information onlime spreading and the situation concerning acidification in the county of Kronoberg, Sweden.The web based GIS application will be used by the county administrations in Kronoberg toinform the public and the municipal authorities of current counteracting acidification activity.This report includes documentation on acidifying processes and liming activities, which arepublicised together with the web based GIS application. The web based GIS application wascreated with ArcIMS, a new program in the ESRI family of GIS programs. The programincludes a guided structure, to development of everything from a map to a complete GISapplication, including mapservice and websites.

The number of LBOs in Sweden has increased during the last years and the current market trend is positive. MostLBOs involves private companies, but a few concerns public corporations on the national share market. In this thesis we will examine the conditions of a LBO of Cloetta Fazer AB. The purpose is to study existing conditions of Cloetta Fazer AB and to examine pros and cons with the deal. Based upon information presented in the frame of reference and in the empirical part, two cash flow valuations have been carried out.

The division of Electricity at Uppsala University runs a project called Lysekil project, they have designed a buoy that uses the waves to create electric power from a generator attached to the bottom of the sea.Uppsala University is closely connected with the company Seabased and the university makes use of their facilities in Lysekil. When they designed the buoy issues occurred, the geometric design was flawed, brackets with a short shelf life and it is generally uneconomic.A study visit was done in Lysekil on Seabased facility. With this visit the project started, which is to improve the design of the buoy and the attachment of wires leading to the generator. In this project we have chosen to use a beam system with three beams that are attached to the buoy. Then a wire attached to a plate that sits between the beams will be leading to the generator. Two proposals for construction are created, what distinguishes them are the brackets between the beams and the buoy.From these constructions, the design that is considered most optimal for our project is chosen.All parts of the buoy have been modeled and the drawings are designed in ProEngineer software.The two constructions are compared with each other, but the whole focus is on the second and final structure. The report begins with an introduction describing Lysekil project, and a task description of our project.The project aims to produce an optimal buoy that will be easy to design, materials restrictive with good durability and an economical solution.Wave power true function has been studied, mechanical and finite element analysis of beams, buoy and plate design.This has been presented in this report, where in the various chapters can read more about the processes. Although the relevant facts and information on this project and buoy development is included.

Environmental management systems are a way of systematizing and streamlining an organization's environmental efforts. Within its EMS the organization determines it´s environmental policy and various environmental objectives. In order to achieve their environmental objectives the organization produces action plans that describe how they will work towards the objectives. Stora Enso Skog AB´s districts have been assigned to produce action plans for the company´s environmental objective of 90 % approved everyday nature consideration in final felling and any targets included within this objective. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the districts work with these action plans and how this could be improved.

Our study has found that there are different structures and strategies in China and the US. This is due to the different constraints in each country which either allows the union to flourish or cripples its ability to function in a manner that protects workers rights..